ABSTRACT
In Robert Francis Kennedy tenure in the United States Department of Justice, while engaged in the legal struggle to advance civil rights and to undo the burdens imposed by racial discrimination, he had become sensitized to and aware of the emerging socioeconomic and cultural aspects of the civil rights struggle. For many Americans, their world-view had begun to be transformed from a 1960s focus on social justice, human rights, and human dignity into a 1970s world of markets and financial speculation. This shift reflected a slow but steady retreat from a communitarian preoccupation with the larger issues of social welfare and social justice that Kennedy and King had devoted their lives and political efforts toward achieving. In 1996, Bill Clinton advanced another agreement with the Republicans that resulted in the abolition of the federal guarantee of assistance to poor Americans under Aid to Families with Dependent Children—one of the central accomplishments of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal.
